RIP Dan Wheldon & James Packard and others the track has taken...

Betty, Lisa and Jim Packard at Indy 500, May 1960

I was born to a millionaire, he didn’t know it then. He still had races to win and years to live. He would have let me work with him in the business because he trusted my mother and I am smart and business-minded like her. He would have built a great empire in the racing world had he lived.... I would have been treated like a princess, a real southern brat, I mean belle.

Dan Wheldon with the Borg Warner Trophy

But it didn’t work out the way it was supposed to. My daddy was killed in a race car in Fairfield, Illinois on my mother’s birthday, October 1, 1960. I was 11 months old and missed him every day. I wondered, ‘where was my kiss, daddy?’, ‘where was my daddy?’ My mother, being very pregnant with my brother couldn’t answer. It seemed she was choosing, maybe protectively, to stare out the window without a tear. Being stoic she felt was the best way to handle his death, but in so choosing a wedge was driven between us no one could ever figure out how to remove.  She has grieved him more in later life it seemed than at that moment, and now I understand people grieve in different ways. I learned to understand her and let go, but even with understanding the wedge remained to remind us of our loss.

My brother, on the other hand, grieved a grief few know of; when we were young and skipped school together and sat by the creek smoking mom’s Viceroys, he would say as he looked at me, “I never felt my father’s touch.” .....What could I say to his pain? How many kids have their father die while they are in their mom's belly? I just puffed and handed him the cigarette for his turn…. within a few years I would do the same with a joint and we would feel a bit mellow, even though the pain remained and does still. 

Dan Wheldon died October 16, 2011

I was at a race a few years ago and happened to turn my head at the right time to see a young girl of maybe 10 or 11 reach up on tip toes to give her daddy a hug. He was dressed in a driver’s suit and turned to walk after his car as it was being pushed towards the starting line. I choked on my emotion and I couldn’t breathe. If there is a God, please don’t let that be the last time she gets to hug her daddy. 

Dan Wheldon at Las Vegas Raceway where he died on the track 2011

It happened again... Today, another child’s daddy taken by the track. His boys looked so young and oh so sweet in all the pictures I poured over. I was driven to find pictures, driven to relive what happened, as if somehow watching the horrific crash would scald into numbness the pain still residing in me. 

No such luck, the witness, the pictures, the YouTube, made my pain more sharp and raw.   

There is nothing left to say, there are no words, yet I'll steal a phrase from a woman who's experienced such pain and sorrow, "death comes quietly as if on cat paws in the night".

I am EQUAL.....

I was happy to see a picture of a couple getting married. They were obviously in love, you can see it in their faces.  

For some this picture causes controversy....it is a picture of 2 men, more so it is a picture of a United States Military Officer marrying his partner.

The U.S. military closes the books on "don't ask, don't tell." Navy Lieutenant Gary Ross and his partner celebrated the end of "don't ask, don't tell" with a Vermont wedding just after midnight, when repeal officially took effect.

Some history of dadt here:US politics live blog: 'Don't ask, don't tell' repeal.

For me? I am happy for them....there needs to be more love in the world, more romance, more understanding, more tolerance.

As a young girl I was exposed to intolerance, bullying, division, racism and more at an early age. Born at the end of the 1950's, racism was still alive and well, even in my extended family. 

As a 4 and 5 year old I was brutally treated by my neighbors, not just the kids, but their parents. Why? Because my mom was a widow and refused to marry immediately after my fathers death. That was a time when a woman 'HAD TO HAVE A MAN' and how dare her to not remarry soon. My mom on the other hand was young and shell-shocked to be widowed so soon after her marriage to her soul-mate. She was waiting for a guy that would be a good father to me and my brother and a good husband to her. It was a tall order and she never found a guy to be both instead marrying a good companion for herself when I was a senior in High School.

The people of my small town could not fathom such a thing and it created such agitation in them that they grew angrier and angrier and more brutal as the years went on.

I remember as a young girl, maybe 8 or so, calling my classmates to see if they could play. Their parents would get on the phone and say, "Don't call here again, you can't play with our kids."  - the reason was that my mom was single.

When I was in third grade the kids started bringing to school the anger that their parents carried, one day during PE some girls through my clothes in the toilet....it wasn't just any outfit, it was a cherished jumper that my very elegant and charismatic Grandma Juanita gave me....it was zebra striped and I felt so glamorous and pretty in it.....I came back to the bathroom to find it stuffed in the toilet....it brings tears to my eyes to this day.

Even the teachers bullied me, one going so far as to pull my ponytail so hard during lunch that it brought tears. I never went back to lunch at school. That was a time when we got an hour lunch to walk home...you know, all mothers were at home waiting for their kids....only the poor, stupid kids had to stay at school for lunch and the teachers hated being there. I never went back....when my mom found out that I was going home for lunch she had me take my brother too....I was happy to take him as I loved him and we were company for each other.

My brother was always quieter than I was, God only knows how he was treated at school and in the neighborhood....so I started cooking lunch for my brother and I at the tender age of 8 or 9. We were in Junior High before we knew that you are supposed to brown the hamburger before you put in the Manwich sauce.

Things always got worse, never better, both my brother and I barely escaped with our sanity from our small town and I am not sure that what you call sanity is what we live in to this day, but we are both happy, mostly and successful.

These years of mistreatment just because I was different, because we were different, ingrained in me a fierce understanding of what it feels like to be different and I will defend over and over again those that need defending.....

To quote someone else, "I have a dream when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, whom they love or how they look, but by who they are."

Casey Heynes has had enough and body slams bully....

I heard about this video and searched into the wee hours of the morning to find a posting of it that I could download. 

Youtube has banned it and I wanted all to see it....please forgive me...it is horrific to see this gentle giant bullied.....

Also forgive the graininess of this video, but it must be seen none-the-less.  

Here is what I could find about this young man Casey.

"Australian student Casey Heynes —an unofficial anti-bullying PSA posterboy—when he was captured on video bodyslamming a bully that had hit him in the face.  The (much smaller) bully taunted and hit Casey after school while other kids laughed and videotaped the whole incident. 

Eventually, the much-bigger Casey could take no more, as he picked up the scrawny antagonizer and smashed him hard onto the concrete.

The youtube description states that Casey's had enough. He "has been bullied his whole school life," says the video description, "and this is what happens when he snaps!!" 

The YouTube page provided the following information, allegedly from Casey’s friend’s father:

“This 16 year old kid has been tormented every single day of his short high school life – and today he snapped!! He was suspended and may be looking at criminal charges, all because this little runt thought he could make an example of Casey in front of his “tough buddies!!”

There are facebook pages to support Casey who allegedly has been suspended from school.

So many people are showing support to this young man...

Casey Heynes Public Figure

Casey Heynes - Bully Slapdown - group trying to raise a scholarship fund for Casey

Casey stands there and takes a slug and then another one, he is a gentle giant...he doesn't want to hurt anyone, he is trying to say, "hey, leave me alone" the bullies friends are videotaping so they can show how 'tough' they are as they bully another boy.

Casey trys again to deflect another punch and then another.

He has had it and instead of punching, because punching is bad, he wrestles the bully and then picks up the kid and slams him to the ground....

Listen people, in a young boys mind picking up and slamming your attacker is much less violent than punching him in the face....Casey did all he could....

All he wanted was to get away....Please watch as Casey is walking away! I can guarentee you that he is crying, he never wanted to hurt anyone!

WHEN ARE WE GOING TO STOP BULLYING??? 

Kudos to the girl who steps in to stop the other bully from going after Casey.....

Questions? 

How can a boy be bullied everyday and no one give a DAMN and stop it?

Where are the school administrators?

Where are the parents?

Where is anyone to give a damn?

We as parents need to get involved!

We have to take a stand and stop bullys, we need to teach our kids to take a stand and stop each and every bullying act they see and to immedaitely come home and tell us what happened. 

We as a people need to take a ZERO tolerance against bullying!